Opinion on PC Build

[TJGM]

So I need a few opinions on this build.

 

I haven't got a specific budget, but if you're going to recommend something over another thing on that list, please try to keep the price similar, thanks. If anyone notices anything that's incompatible with one another, let me know.

 

I also have a question about the number of fans that I'll need. I'm new to this PC building thing and after years of waiting to get a new PC, this is my chance. My only real worry is if it'll overheat or not. If anyone has any idea how many fans that system will need, please let me know and if you wouldn't mind, recommend me on what fans to get, thanks. (has to be on pcpicker and available from amazon.co.uk)

Edited January 20, 2015 by TJGM

[yoječ]

The build seems perfect to me (assuming you will be overclocking the CPU).

The case comes with four fans preinstalled, they should do the job.

[TJGM]

The build seems perfect to me (assuming you will be overclocking the CPU).

The case comes with four fans preinstalled, they should do the job.

Awesome!

 

I don't know much about overclocking, as I have a feeling I'll push it too much, so you'll probably see me back here in about a month or so asking about it. Thanks for the help.

[TJGM]

I just realised I didn't even give the correct link to the build. Well ain't I a derp, link fixed.

I guess you were looking at a build you previously made on partpicker, lol.

Edited January 20, 2015 by TJGM

[yoječ]

Yes I was.

 

Sadly, the one from the first post is quite terrible IMHO. FX-9590 is definitely not worth the money.

Edited January 20, 2015 by yojo2

[aStiffSausage]

Indeed, for the money you'd spend on hexacore CPU, AIO liquid cooling and a motherboard, you could get quad-core Intel which performs better at least when taking a look at single core performance, like i5-4690k or i7-4790k, new Z97 chipset motherboard capable of good overclocking and a quality tower cooler.

 

Anyways, wouldn't take the AMD, especially for gaming, since it's higher clock frequency can't beat good architecture, and eight cores are really more than enough. Even so, you'll most likely never even need that many. And high power consumption combined with high temperature requires more powerful PSU and a good cooler, like some AIO solution.

[TJGM]

Sadly, the one from the first post is quite terrible IMHO.

Nothing wrong with that, you just saved me from what seems to be a disaster.

 

Anything you'd change/replace specifically? I'm really no good at this stuff and I haven't got much time to do research, so I don't know what's best.

[yoječ]

Well... what didn't you like about the previous build?

[TJGM]

Well... what didn't you like about the previous build?

What previous build? The build you said was quite terrible or the build you originally commented on?

 

If it's the build you thought was quite terrible, well then I don't know what to like or dislike about it, to me it seemed fine but you thought it was quite terrible, so I assumed it could be improved on except I don't know exactly what to improve. I also trust your opinion/judgement a lot more than me on these things.

 

If it's the build you originally commented on, well I could never see that build in the first place.

[yoječ]

I'm talking about the build that was originally there (didn't it have i5-4690k?)... I can't find it in the browser history. Nevermind

 

So, you're going to overclock the CPU, right?

[TheMcSame]

I find a few things a bit... Meh here and there. Am I right in assuming this is a gaming PC build or will it have any other major uses?

 

Also, is there any reason you want a water cooler?

Edited January 20, 2015 by TheMcSame

[TJGM]

I'm talking about the build that was originally there (didn't it have i5-4690k?)... I can't find it in the browser history. Nevermind

 

So, you're going to overclock the CPU, right?

The build that was originally there was a build that you made on partpicker previously, it was saved in your cookies so I can't actually see it.

 

I find a few things a bit... Meh here and there. Am I right in assuming this is a gaming PC build or will it have any other major uses?

 

Also, is there any reason you want a water cooler?

Yes, it's a gaming PC. I mainly wanted a water cooler because my room can get fairly hot sometimes and I'd like to keep it as cool as possible, so I just assumed they'd be better overall.

 

As I said, I haven't had much time to reserach a lot of this stuff, so I kinda just picked at random and if partpicker said it had no compatibility issues I thought it'd be fine. My research went as far as looking at reviews on Amazon.

EDIT: I'd also like to mention that I haven't got a budget. Although, I would prefer if everything was from Amazon and each item cost around 200-230 pounds, that's really my only limit.

Edited January 21, 2015 by TJGM

[TheMcSame]

I mainly wanted a water cooler because my room can get fairly hot sometimes and I'd like to keep it as cool as possible

Trust me, water cooling doesn't cool the room down at all.

 

Skip to 8:11

 

 

Edited January 21, 2015 by TheMcSame

[yoječ]

The build that was originally there was a build that you made on partpicker previously, it was saved in your cookies so I can't actually see it.

Okay, that makes sense

I mainly wanted a water cooler because my room can get fairly hot sometimes and I'd like to keep it as cool as possible, so I just assumed they'd be better overall.

As @TheMcSame said - water cooling won't cool down your room even a bit. Unless you'd install the radiators outside of your room

 

This is what I'd consider:

 

PCPartPicker part list / Price breakdown by merchant

 

CPU: Intel Core i7-4790K 4.0GHz Quad-Core Processor (£265.34 @ Amazon UK)

CPU Cooler: Phanteks PH-TC14PE_BK 78.1 CFM CPU Cooler (£67.37 @ Amazon UK)

Motherboard: ASRock Z97 EXTREME4 ATX LGA1150 Motherboard (£110.47 @ Amazon UK)

Memory: G.Skill Trident X Series 8GB (2 x 4GB) DDR3-2400 Memory (£69.98 @ Amazon UK)

Storage: Crucial M550 512GB 2.5" Solid State Drive (£171.88 @ Amazon UK)

Storage: Seagate Barracuda 1TB 3.5" 7200RPM Internal Hard Drive (£43.95 @ Amazon UK)

Video Card: Gigabyte GeForce GTX 970 4GB WINDFORCE 3X Video Card (£275.85 @ Amazon UK)

Case: Fractal Design Define R5 ATX Mid Tower Case (£82.99 @ Amazon UK)

Power Supply: XFX XTR 550W 80+ Gold Certified Fully-Modular ATX Power Supply (£68.35 @ Amazon UK)

Operating System: Microsoft Windows 8.1 (OEM) (64-bit) (£72.99 @ Amazon UK)

Total: £1229.17

Prices include shipping, taxes, and discounts when available

Generated by PCPartPicker 2015-01-21 08:21 GMT+0000

 

- faster CPU (and a compatible mobo to go with it), runs cooler too;

- faster GPU - also runs cooler than R9-290;

- better SSD (Samsung 850 Evo is one of their cheapest offerings) - do you really need 500GB though? Seems like a waste...

- changed the case to one with sound dampening, but it's up to you to decide;

- better quality power supply (less watts, but still much more than enough);

- top-end air cooler (if you really want a AiO water cooler, then I'd go for Corsair H110);

 

Other notes:

- changed the HDD to a smaller one, because 2TB version comes in several revisions - unless you can choose the best (double platter, as opposed to tripple platter), I wouldn't buy it;

- less RAM, because for gaming 16GBs is really unnecessary...

- if you won't be overclocking the CPU, several changes can be made to the rig to reduce costs, while keeping similar performance.

 

CPU and GPU went over your £200-230 preferred budget, but overall the rig is cheaper (and faster) than the one you posted before. It also emits less heat.

Edited January 21, 2015 by yojo2

[TJGM]

Fantastic, thanks! Although, the budget on items is necessary as I can't go over 250. Is there anything similar to the CPU/GPU that's under 250 and on Amazon?

 

I mainly wanted a water cooler because my room can get fairly hot sometimes and I'd like to keep it as cool as possible, so I just assumed they'd be better overall.

As @TheMcSame said - water cooling won't cool down your room even a bit. Unless you'd install the radiators outside of your room

 

Well I didn't want it to cool down the room, but the PC itself. I guess it'll be fine though.

 

 

- better SSD (Samsung 850 Evo is one of their cheapest offerings) - do you really need 500GB though? Seems like a waste...
- changed the case to one with sound dampening, but it's up to you to decide;

Other notes:
- changed the HDD to a smaller one, because 2TB version comes in several revisions - unless you can choose the best (double platter, as opposed to tripple platter), I wouldn't buy it;
- less RAM, because for gaming 16GBs is really unnecessary...
- if you won't be overclocking the CPU, several changes can be made to the rig to reduce costs, while keeping similar performance.

 

-Well I'll most likely install the OS on the SSD and I'll probably install GTA V there too, as that game is full of loading screens, so I think 500gb should be enough.

-The case you picked is fine, as long as air flow is good and everything fits it's fine by me. Less sound is also a bonus.

 

-HDD is fine. Now that I think of it, 2tb may have been too much, and I have 2 other HDD's that I think I'll install too, one is 500gb and the other is 256gb or something along those lines.

-I'm not actually sure if I'll be strictly gaming, even though I said I would. I want the PC mainly for games, but now that I think of it, I will be using 3ds max, photoshop and possibly Sony Vegas too and with V coming out on PC, I'm pretty sure while modding I'll have V along with some of these programs open. So perhaps 16gb would be better?

-I'll most likely overclock, I've had no experience with overclocking in the past, so I'll probably ask here when I get everything in 2-3 weeks.

[yoječ]

As for the CPU you can get the i5-4590k, though staying with i7 is recommended if you're thinking about rendering.

http://uk.pcpartpicker.com/part/intel-cpu-bx80646i54690k

 

As for the GPU... staying with GTX970 is highly recommended. If fore some reason the price cannot exceed £250, then R9-290 is your best option. I'd go for a brand that gives three year warranty, e.g.

http://uk.pcpartpicker.com/part/asus-video-card-r9290dc2oc4gd5

 

To be honest though - are you in hurry? New nVidia cards should be out this month, GTX965Ti should be a direct competitor to R9-290.

[TJGM]

As for the CPU you can get the i5-4590k, though staying with i7 is recommended if you're thinking about rendering.

http://uk.pcpartpicker.com/part/intel-cpu-bx80646i54690k

 

As for the GPU... staying with GTX970 is highly recommended. If fore some reason the price cannot exceed £250, then R9-290 is your best option. I'd go for a brand that gives three year warranty, e.g.

http://uk.pcpartpicker.com/part/asus-video-card-r9290dc2oc4gd5

 

To be honest though - are you in hurry? New nVidia cards should be out this month, GTX965Ti should be a direct competitor to R9-290.

Well I doubt I'd be rendering in a hurry and doing anything major at the same time, so I think I'll go with the i5-4590k.

 

Well I'll be ordering these parts around the 10th of next month or so, so no hurry. I assume the GTX965Ti will be similar in price and on Amazon? If so, I'll go with that instead.

Edited January 21, 2015 by TJGM

[yoječ]

According to leaked info, it should be quite close in terms of performance to GTX970, chances are it'll be sold below £250.

[TJGM]

According to leaked info, it should be quite close in terms of performance to GTX970, chances are it'll be sold below £250.

Alright, I'll keep an eye out for that, thanks.

 

Oh and one more thing, do you think a dedicated sound card is worth it? I remember hearing people talking about them for gaming and according to them, they gave them a huge advantage when playing FPS games like Battlefield or CoD, any experience with them before?

[TheMcSame]

Well I doubt I'd be rendering in a hurry and doing anything major at the same time, so I think I'll go with the i5-4590k.

 

 

 

Well I'll be ordering these parts around the 10th of next month or so, so no hurry. I assume the GTX965Ti will be similar in price and on Amazon? If so, I'll go with that instead.

 

I'd be surprised to see that card on Amazon, all the XX5 cards I've seen from Nvidia have been OEM cards that aren't sold to the public.

 

You'd really be better off with a 970 if the budget isn't a big problem. I'd definitely try to wait before buying one though. The price:performance (ratio) is pretty great but coil whine is quite a problem with this model atm.

A 5X70k may be out then as well which may be something to consider depending on the prices.

 

As for the hard drive I'd recommend this: http://uk.pcpartpicker.com/part/hitachi-internal-hard-drive-hua721010kla330

 

Cheaper than the Barracuda and from what I've seen it can stand up to the WD black. The best bit is that it's made by Hitachi (HGST) who are known for low failure rates (one of, if not, the lowest failure rates in the industry).

 

 

 

Fun fact: Hitachi's best selling product is the magic wand

 

 

Edited January 21, 2015 by TheMcSame

[sivispacem]

HGST or other enterprise spec stuff if you really want disks that will last.

[yoječ]

I'd be surprised to see that card on Amazon, all the XX5 cards I've seen from Nvidia have been OEM cards that aren't sold to the public.

Not all of them, for example GTX465, GTX275, GTX285. There are rumors that GTX960 and two Ti variants (960Ti and 965Ti?) will be released soon (GTX960 was already confirmed). Edited January 21, 2015 by yojo2

[TJGM]

So am I right in saying that the R9 290 Tri-x OC is just the original R9 290 except it has better cooling and it's over clocked?

[yoječ]

Yup, pretty much

[utack]

I would also recommend an Intel i5 CPU. Single thread performance is way too important to be ignored.

But don't touch the GTX 970, the recent VRAM issue made it pretty pointless. Your choice of a custom cooled R9 290* is resonable.

Edited February 4, 2015 by utack

[sivispacem]

Nothing wrong with the overwhelming majority of 970s. You'd have to be mad to pass up the best VFM card on the market over it.

[utack]

Nothing wrong with the overwhelming majority of 970s. You'd have to be mad to pass up the best VFM card on the market over it.

1% frame times are suffering greatly from this mess they designed when using the slow VRAM. The average frame time might look ok, but who wants stuttering.

[sivispacem]

It's an issue manifesting itself in a handful of users, on the absolutely tiny minority of games that actually utilise more than 3.5Gb VRAM. In terms of frame rate impact it's no worse than the intermittent frame latency issues that have affected AMD 2** series cards for years now.

[utack]

It's an issue manifesting itself in a handful of users, on the absolutely tiny minority of games that actually utilise more than 3.5Gb VRAM. In terms of frame rate impact it's no worse than the intermittent frame latency issues that have affected AMD 2** series cards for years now.

Depends on the game, but under 3GB VRAM there is not much diff:

https://techreport.com/review/27067/nvidia-geforce-gtx-980-and-970-graphics-cards-reviewed/7

[sivispacem]

Think you missed my point there.